Zhang Yimou

Zhang Yimou (born 1950 in Xi’an) is the towering figure of China’s “Fifth Generation” filmmakers. Red Sorghum won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1988, and Raise the Red Lantern, Hero and House of Flying Daggers brought Chinese cinema to global audiences. He also directed the celebrated opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and returned for the 2022 Winter Games — a career built on staging spectacle at scales no one else attempts.

An AI team for the Three-Body Problem

In 2024, Zhang was announced as director of the long-awaited film adaptation of Liu Cixin’s Hugo-winning novel The Three-Body Problem — arguably the biggest project in Chinese cinema. Speaking about the production in December 2024, he told Xinhua that beyond refining the script, the first thing he did was establish a dedicated AI team, adding that using new technologies and concepts in production is “a learning experience.”

His move became the marquee example of the Chinese film industry’s rapid AI adoption. In the same Xinhua report, China Film Critics Association president Rao Shuguang observed that “AI now permeates every aspect of filmmaking, from conceptual development to post-production,” and industry leaders warned that filmmakers who fail to learn the evolving tools quickly risk being outpaced by peers who do — even as Rao insisted human imagination and creativity remain irreplaceable.

Zhang’s posture contrasts sharply with the litigation-first response of much of Hollywood: rather than resisting the technology, one of the most decorated visual stylists in film history is treating it as the next department to master, alongside peers like Jia Zhangke who have run their own AI experiments.